THEY MEAN THE WORLD TO ME

 TRANSFER 6 - WEEK 6

"A difficult week.  Lots of setbacks lately but Elder Jensen and I 

are going to keep pressing forward.  

We are going to do our absolute best and have faith 

and then let Heavenly Father do the rest."

This is Michael.  He just received the Aaronic Priesthood.  An awesome family!  He reminds me of Nate and Jake back home and their great examples to me.  Jake and Michael would be great friends.  Good stuff!

Well... This week was pretty similar to last week, a difficult week, but that's ok.  A lot, in fact most, of our investigators don't want to meet anymore or aren't answering the phone. It's really sad and I don't have much to report for the week except that we are working very hard. 

We have an investigator Chen2 Jie3 Mei4.  She is great! We shared a lot of the commandments with her and she is progressing. Yesterday she didn't come to church and we didn't know why. We found out that she fell in her house and ended up at the doctor all day. Lots of setbacks lately but Elder Jensen and I are going to keep pressing forward. Chen2 Jie3 Mei4 struggles with the Word of Wisdom so keep her in your prayers as we share this with her and help her come unto Christ!

I ate stinky tofu for the first time this week! SUPER stinky haha but didn't taste horrible. It wasn't good at all though. 

Straight up snake head soup/I think alcohol

Also my companion Elder Jensen got hit by a scooter yesterday. Roads here in Taiwan are nuts! He walked away with a little scrape. Truly a miracle! 

This week was cool because Habib and Chen2 Ya3 Yi4 came to Zhong1 Li4 to visit me. :) We had lunch with them and it was awesome seeing them! They mean the world to me. They are both super busy with hard things and have some trials but they are doing great. I talked to them about getting sealed in the temple next summer. They really want to do that :) I'm really hoping they keep preparing for that goal! Really really special people!

Habib and his wife YaYi with Elder Willes.  They came all the way from XinZhu to see me (Elder Willes' previous area).  Both are recent converts that Elder Willes helped to teach and baptize.

Also we got word of an investigator living in California who is Taiwanese and she really wants to get baptized. BUT her family (who all live here in Zhong1 Li4) oppose this.  We were asked to go and visit the family to try and soften some hearts :) They live in our area but really far away.  Our area is HUGE.  Yesterday we biked all the way out there and the mom wasn't there but her college age little sister was and we taught her about the church. She was really willing to listen and we had a great lesson with her and we are going to keep in touch with her. We really hope we can get ahold of the mom so we can help her see what the Gospel is all about so she will let her daughter in California be baptized! Pray for the Zeng Family!

Probably the biggest miracles we saw this week were we had 5 LA's at church! That was cool and we have some cool new LA's that have great potential in coming back. Also, Sean our awesome LA, who has made this huge turnaround is doing awesome. He got a calling yesterday as a ward missionary!!! So stoked for him :) So cool to help a lost sheep be able to partake of the blessings the Gospel brings again! 

We also spent a full day in Guan1 Yin1 the furthest part of our area this week finding LA's. It was quite the bike ride out there through plenty of rice fields.  Really pretty.  We went on splits and so I was with our WML Wu2 Di4 Xiong1 and we drove around in his big truck finding LA's and it was really fun! 

Out in Guan1Yin1

Also, last PDay was a blast. The Chen2 family our recent converts took us to Taipei.   We took a ferry on this huge lake in Taipei. So much fun! They treated us to a great day at Tamsui in Dan4 Shui3.  This family is incredible.  They were soooo nice to us.  It was a great day.  Dan4 Shui3 is Uncle Dan's favorite place he served.  Have you been here Uncle Dan?  It is beautiful!

Anyway Elder Jensen and I had a good chat last night about how we can really help this area progress and feel like things are going to turn around. We are going to do our absolute best and have faith and then let Heavenly Father do the rest :) Love you all! 

Oh I forgot.  Do you guys remember that Zhong1 Di4 Xiong1 who Elder Marchant and I found awhile back in 

Xin1 Zhu2?? Super big miracle find?? Ya, he's getting baptized this Saturday! So excited!!! I really am hoping to get permission to go to his baptism but we will see. Have a good week!

Elder Willes